Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

 It's just over a week now until the Iron Horse Ultra 100-miler, and training for the race has gone exceptionally well with my weekly mileage exceeding 100km for the past three weeks, and one week it was around 125km! That's definitely high mileage for me, but I have been feeling pretty good for the most part, the only hindrance being the heat which only abated in the last week or so - we're now back to more autumn like temperatures, which includes cooler days and much cooler evenings! Autumn running and my favourite time of the year! :) The hubby is still away in India so the doubling up of long runs on a weekend has been hard - I hate leaving the dogs on their own when they've already spent a the work week home alone, waiting in anticipation for me to get home from work which is when I take them for their daily mayhem at the dog park. But doubling up I have done, and with some 50+ km days on the weekends, my body has certainly started to feel the benefits.  50km run d...

Is it really September tomorrow??!! The year has flown by yet again and I will be honest in saying that my running year so far has been pretty average with more disappointments than highs this year. But that's ok - you can't be at your best all the time, and things have certainly been somewhat hectic this past few weeks. I soon got back into running after my disappointing DNF at Sinister, and so far things are going ok. There has been some nonsense going on at work this past couple of months which has interfered with things, and the hubby is currently working away in India which brings added stresses dealing with everything at home, but if there's one thing I have learnt from my ultra running it is resilience., and I know I've the ability to overcome these things and push through them. I'm still focused on my next race in October, I still have ambitious goals, and I am making that my priority rather than letting anything else drag me down. Three weeks after Sinister...

 I knew going into the Sinister 7 Ultra that I wasn't as well trained for mountain running as I was this time last year. Twelve months ago, I ran the 50 miler with relative ease, finishing in a little over 12 hours and even making the podium with a third place finish, whereas this year, I hadn't been to the mountains once, and I knew I was in for a hard time. Regardless, I headed down to Crowsnest Pass with the goal of just finishing the race, even if I was DFL and only just made the 30 hour cut-off. After a rather soggy and cooler spring and early summer, July brought heat warnings and hit temperatures in Alberta, and the forecast for race day was calling for highs of 30+ degrees - it was going to be a hot one! I did the best I could to prepare for the heat, continuing with my lunch time walks at work, and then running after work when things seemed to feel even warmer than earlier in the day. I even did my longer weekend runs just after lunch during the hottest part of the day...

Survivorfest 24-hour track race was another one of those races that brought an unexpected result - I ended up finishing second placed lady, giving me the silver medal in the Canadian National Championships, something I seriously did not expect, especially at the age of 51! If I'm honest, I know that there were much stronger athletes than me competing at the event, and I personally feel that the poor weather likely affected their races. For me personally , I coped pretty well with the persistent rain and cool temperatures, and even the relatively brisk winds didn't have me yelling in frustration for a change. My initial race plans for 2024 didn't include Survivorfest, but having finally become a Canadian citizen back in April, I wanted to take part in a national championship and attempt to qualify for the national 24-hour team before I get much older. I wasn't really interested in the competition - my only goal was to exceed 180km, which is the minimum standard for the C...